   #copyright

A Wrinkle in Time

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Novels

   CAPTION: A Wrinkle in Time

      Author    Madeleine L'Engle
   Cover Artist Ellen Raskin (1960s editions),
                Leo and Diane Dillon (current hardcover)
     Country    United States
     Language   English
      Series    Time Quartet
     Genre(s)   Young Adult, Science fiction novel
    Publisher   Farrar, Straus & Giroux
     Released   1962
    Media Type  Print ( Hardback & Paperback)
      Pages     211 pp
       ISBN     ISBN 0-374-38613-7
   Followed by  A Wind in the Door

   A Wrinkle in Time is a children's fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle,
   written from 1959 to 1960 and published in 1962 after many rejections
   by publishers because it was, in L'Engle's words, "too different." The
   book went on to win a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and Lewis
   Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen
   Award. It is the first in L'Engle's series of books about the Murry and
   O'Keefe families.

Plot summary

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   The main character is thirteen-year-old Meg Murry, who is regarded by
   her peers and teachers as a bad-tempered underachiever. Her family
   recognizes her problem as a lack of emotional maturity but also regards
   her as being capable of great things. The family includes her beautiful
   scientist mother, her mysteriously missing scientist father, her
   five-year-old brother Charles Wallace Murry —a nascent super-genius—
   and ten-year-old twin athlete brothers Sandy and Dennys Murry.

   The book begins with the line, " It was a dark and stormy night," an
   allusion to the opening words in Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's 1830
   novel Paul Clifford (though probably more familiar to juvenile readers
   through Snoopy's writings in the comic strip Peanuts). The Murrys are
   visited by an eccentric old woman named Mrs Whatsit, who has previously
   made the acquaintance of Charles Wallace. After drying her feet and
   having a midnight snack with Charles, Meg and their mother, Mrs Whatsit
   tells an already perplexed Dr. Murry that "there is such a thing as a
   tesseract."

   Shortly thereafter, Meg and Charles meet up with Meg's upperclassman
   schoolmate Calvin O'Keefe, who, although he is a stereotypical "big man
   on campus", turns out to be keen to join the children for further
   encounters with Mrs Whatsit and her rather more eccentric friends Mrs
   Who and Mrs Which.

   Whatsit, Who, and Which turn out to be transcendental beings who
   transport Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin through the galaxy by means
   of tesseracts, which are explained as being similar to "folding" the
   fabric of space and time. The "Mrs W's" reveal to the children that the
   galaxy is being conquered by a dark cloud, which is the visible
   manifestation of evil. Meg's missing father was working on a secret
   government project to achieve faster-than-light travel through a
   tesseract, and accidentally wound up on Camazotz, an alien planet
   inside the cloud of evil. The children also discover that Earth is
   partially covered by the darkness, although great religious figures,
   philosophers, and artists are fighting against it.

   The children travel to Camazotz and rescue Meg's father, who is being
   imprisoned by an evil disembodied brain with powerful telepathic
   powers, which the inhabitants of Camazotz call "IT". However, Charles
   Wallace is mentally dominated by IT, and is left behind when the others
   flee, tessering through the Black Thing to a planet inhabited by
   sightless but wise beasts. After a brief period of recuperation, Meg is
   sent back to Camazotz alone, having been told that only she has the
   power to rescue Charles Wallace. Confronting IT, Meg realizes that she
   can free her brother by loving him intensely, because love is an
   emotion that IT, in its evil, cannot stand. Charles Wallace is freed,
   and everyone returns home to Earth.

Characters

Primary human characters

Meg Murry

   Margaret "Meg" Murry is the eldest child of scientists Alex and Kate
   Murry. Mathematically brilliant but less than adept at other subjects
   in school, Meg is awkward, unpopular, and defensive around authority
   figures as well as her peers. She loves her family, especially her
   brother, Charles Wallace, and longs desperately for her missing father.
   Meg is unhappy with her physical appearance, particularly her
   mouse-brown, unruly hair, braces and glasses; and considers herself a
   "monster" in comparison with her mother. Introduced on the first page
   of the book, she is the story's protagonist.

Charles Wallace Murry

   Charles Wallace Murry is the youngest Murry child, the most
   extraordinary and the most vulnerable of the novel's human characters.
   Charles Wallace did not talk at all until he was nearly four years old,
   at which time he began to speak in complete sentences. Now five years
   old, Charles can empathically or telepathically "read" certain people's
   thoughts and feelings, and has an extraordinary vocabulary. He first
   appears in chapter one.

Calvin O'Keefe

   Calvin O'Keefe is the third eldest of Paddy and Branwen O'Keefe's
   eleven children, a tall, thin, red-haired 14-year-old high school
   junior who plays on the school basketball team. Neglected by his own
   family, Calvin joyfully enters the lives of the Murry family, starting
   in chapter two.

Primary immortal characters

Mrs Whatsit

   Mrs Whatsit is described as being an elderly woman wrapped in layers of
   clothes. She first appears in chapter one. Charles Wallace, a five year
   old boy in the book, found her in a haunted house in the woods, where
   she has been living with her two friends, Mrs Who and Mrs Which. Mrs
   Whatsit is the youngest of the Mrs W's, and the best of the three at
   interacting with the children.

   In chapter 4, the group (Charles Wallace, Calvin, and Meg) witnesses
   the physical transformation of Mrs Whatsit into a centaur-like winged
   being on the planet Uriel. Mrs Whatsit is also revealed to have been a
   star that sacrificed itself by going nova to destroy a section of the
   Black Thing.

Mrs Who

   Mrs Who is described as being a plump woman with giant spectacles. She
   is seen quoting in Latin, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and
   Greek. She also quotes William Shakespeare repeatedly. Mrs Whatsit
   explains that Mrs Who finds it "difficult to verbalize" in her own
   words. She is first introduced in Chapter 2.

Mrs Which

   Mrs Which is the oldest of the Mrs W's. She is normally seen as little
   more than a shimmer of light. She seldom (if ever) fully materializes,
   but in human form she resembles a stereotyped witch in black robe and
   peaked hat. She finds it hard to think as a corporeal being. In Chapter
   5, she accidentally brings Charles, Meg, and Calvin to a 2-D world.

Proper way to refer to the immortal characters

   Madeleine L'Engle specifically requested her American publisher to use
   the British punctuation of "Mrs" (with no period following) to
   designate the characters Mrs Who, Mrs Which and Mrs Whatsit. However,
   there were several mix-ups regarding punctuation in general, and the
   books were printed with a period following Mrs. regardless of her
   wishes.

Supporting human characters

Dr. Alexander (Alex) Murry

   Dr. Alex Murry is an astrophysicist, researching the mysteries of the
   space/time continuum, specifically five-dimensional means of travel
   between planets. He is also the father of Meg, Sandy, Dennys and
   Charles Wallace. He has been missing for some time as the novel opens.
   Not even his government colleagues know where he is. (Note: Dr. Murry's
   first name is given in a later novel in the series, a fact that was
   ignored by the writers of the book's television adaptation.) He first
   appears in a flashback in chapter one.

Dr. Katherine (Kate) Murry

   Dr. Kate Murry is a microbiologist, wife of Dr. Alexander Murry, and
   mother of the four Murry children. She is considered beautiful by the
   Murry children and others, having "flaming red hair" and violet eyes.
   Her physical attractiveness, academic and scientific accomplishments
   give Meg a bit of an inferiority complex. She is introduced in chapter
   one, and usually referred to as Mrs. Murry. As in her husband's case,
   her first name is revealed in a later book, and does not match the one
   given in the television version of the story.

Alexander (Sandy) Murry

   Sandy Murry and his twin brother Dennys are the middle children in the
   Murry family, older than Charles Wallace but younger than Meg. They are
   10 years old at the time of this book. Sandy is named after his father,
   Dr. Alex Murry. Although they are certainly intelligent, Sandy and his
   twin are considered the "normal" children in the family: B students,
   good at sports, and well able to fit in with their peers. Of the twins,
   Sandy is generally the leader, and the more pragmatic of the two. He
   and Dennys first appear in chapter one.

Dennys Murry

   Dennys Murry is the twin of Sandy Murry. Dennys and his twin are
   usually inseparable, with Dennys generally following Sandy's lead.
   However, Dennys is slightly less skeptical than his brother with about
   the strange theories and even stranger adventures of Meg and Charles
   Wallace. (Note: The name Dennys is a shortened version of Dionysus, but
   is pronounced the same way as the more common spelling Dennis.)
   Spoilers end here.

Locations

     * Camazotz – A planet of extreme, enforced conformity, ruled by a
       disembodied brain called IT.
     * Ixchel – A planet of muted colors inhabited by sightless creatures.
     * Uriel – A planet with extremely tall mountains, named after the
       Archangel Uriel. It is inhabited by creatures that resemble winged
       centaurs.

Major themes

Religious content

   On the planet Uriel, the centaur-like beings sing a song which
   translates (brackets indicates text that is in the book but not in the
   Bible): "Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of
   the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the
   isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities
   thereof lift up their voice[,] ... let the inhabitants of the rock
   sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory
   unto the Lord[!]" — Isaiah 42:10-12a ( KJV)

   When the Mrs W's reveal their secret roles in the cosmic fight against
   "the darkness" they ask the children to name some on Earth (a partially
   dark planet) who fight the darkness. First named is Jesus followed by
   several scientists and artists including Buddha, Gandhi, Bach, Einstein
   and Euclid. The three women act as guardian angels but are actually
   ancient star-beings. They think nothing of living in an abandoned house
   and pretending to be witches as they have nothing to prove.

   After the escape from Camazotz, while they are on Ixchel, Alexander
   Murry tells Meg: "And we know that all things work together for good to
   them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
   purpose." — Romans 8:28 ( KJV)

   L'Engle's liberal Christianity is unsettling to some. This novel is on
   the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently
   Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 22.

Notable quote

   "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!" Meg's thoughts on
   seeing the anti-individualism on the planet Camazotz.

Other books in the series

   L'Engle has written three other books featuring this generation of the
   Murry family. Listed in order of the internal chronology of the series:
     * A Wind in the Door ( 1973) ISBN 0-374-38443-6
     * Many Waters ( 1986) ISBN 0-374-34796-4
     * A Swiftly Tilting Planet ( 1978) ISBN 0-374-37362-0

   See also: List of L'Engle's works for other related books.

Concerning A Wrinkle in Time

     * Scholastic BookFiles: A Reading Guide to A Wrinkle in Time ISBN
       0-439-46364-5
     * Chase, Carole F. Suncatcher: A Study of Madeleine L'Engle and Her
       Writing, pg. 170. Innisfree Press, 1998, ISBN 1-880913-31-3

Audio book

   An unabridged four cassette audio edition, read by the author, was
   released in 1994 by Listening Library, ISBN 0-8072-7587-5.

Television movie

   In 2003, a television adaptation of the novel was made by Disney. The
   movie was directed by John Kent Harrison, and the teleplay was written
   by Susan Shilliday. Among the many differences between the book and the
   movie are different first names for Meg's parents, and implied
   identification of Dr. Murry's co-worker Hank (a character barely
   mentioned in the book) as The Man with the Red Eyes. More
   significantly, religious elements of the novel are largely omitted. For
   example, the name of Jesus is not mentioned as one who fought against
   evil; and when Mrs. Whatsit asks Charles Wallace to translate the song
   of the centaur-like creatures on Uriel, he simply says "it's about
   joy".

   The film was subsequently released on DVD. The special features
   included deleted scenes, a "behind the scenes" segment, and a "very
   rare" interview with Madeleine L'Engle who discusses the novel.

Cast

     * Katie Stuart as Meg Murry
     * Gregory Smith as Calvin O'Keefe
     * David Dorfman as Charles Wallace Murry
     * Chris Potter as Dr. Jack Murray
     * Kyle Secor as the Man With Red Eyes
     * Sean Cullen as the Happy Medium
     * Sarah-Jane Redmond as Dr. Dana Murray
     * Kate Nelligan as Mrs Which
     * Alison Elliott as Mrs Who
     * Alfre Woodard as Mrs Whatsit

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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